As usual, we’ll get right to this week’s interviews and see what’s been getting said at this week’s UCLA football press conferences. I’m just going to share this week’s videos here all in the same place to make it easy for you to watch them if you haven’t already. The videos in this article are courtesy of UCLA Athletics on YouTube, unless noted otherwise.
Coach Bob Chesney
With UCLA playing tonight, it was a short week of practice for the Bruins. As a result, UCLA head coach Bob Chesney only met with the media on Monday instead of on Monday and Tuesday like he does during a regular week.
Chesney spoke about his message to the team on Monday:
The message really to them today was ultimately, “You’re in a good place because of how hard you practice and how hard you play.”
Like that has to be, you know, who we ultimately are. And I’m I’m proud of their efforts out on the field and the amount of themselves that they’re willing to give on every single play.
And that’s, you know, again, a sign of a a good team.
That’s just one small snippet of a 20-minute interview which covers a lot of ground including Chesney’s relationship with other UCLA coaches, among other topics.
Coordinators: Dean Kennedy and Colin Hitschler
Offensive coordinator Dean Kennedy and defensive coordinator Colin Hitschler moved up their interviews to Tuesday this week due to the short week.
One thing Kennedy spoke about was the halftime adjustments. Kennedy explained:
To be honest with you, this isn’t one person that helps lead this charge. It’s everybody on the offensive staff in the booth.
I think Scott Brisson does an unbelievable job, right? He’s charting all those things.
All the position coaches are watching their stuff and then after every single drive, like we talk about it.
And then at halftime, that’s where we really kind of regroup and say, “Okay, where are the tendencies?” And to be honest with you, it’s some of the GA’s and QC’s in the booth that are doing a great job of charting those things, right?
And really making sure that they articulate to us and then we can start to develop a plan. But I think…everybody. Everybody. Like this isn’t a one-man show. Just like on offense, it’s not the quarterback. It’s not the o-line. It’s everybody.
Meanwhile, Coach Hitschler also touched on a multitude of topics from his quote where he said “Bob Chesney makes people fall in love with football” to how the coaching staff has instilled a winning mentality to Illinois center Jake Renfro who was at Cincinnati when Hitschler was there.
Players: Carter Sweazie and Scooter Jackson
Offensive lineman Carter Sweazie tried to explain how the team keeps finding a way to win. Sweazie said:
I think just constant competition in practice like we’ve been there before. I think that’s a common theme. Like we know it’s not…when things aren’t going our way, we know it’s not we’re not focused. It’s we’re playing a good team. It’s good on good. And the fourth quarter, second half is when things are really decided.
Meanwhile, Scooter Jackson spoke about how excited he is about the return of Rod Pleasant this week, and he also spoke about his connection to Coach Chesney. Jackson tried to explain it but, ultimately, decided he couldn’t. He said:
My first time meeting Coach Chesney was actually right here. His first time coming in this building, I was standing right there. It was it was wonderful. It was exciting. Um, it was just a blessing. I love Coach Chesney. That’s my guy. I’ll do anything for him.
As we would say, his aura. He just has just something about him that I really can’t explain. You just have to be around him.
Bonus Videos
We’ll start this week’s bonus videos with Coach Chesney on the Bruin Insider Show.
Scooter Jackson also joined this week’s show.
And, of course, we conclude this week with The Bruin Tape for Game Nine to pump you up for tonight’s game.
Go Bruins!!!
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The Bob Chesney Daniel Jeremiah is a good one too.